Last month, excerpts of the conclusions of the official military investigations on the “Varginha Case” were published by IstoE magazine. As would be expected, they caused quite a furor among enthusiasts because there Lt Col Lúcio Finholdt Pereira raised as “the most probable hypothesis” that a local with disabilities, known as “Luizinho” – or Little Luis:

“being probably dirty, due to the heavy rain, seen crouching against a wall, was mistaken by three terrified girls as a ‘creature from space’”.

In short, as can be seen in the comparison above, part of the military inquest, Little Luis was allegedly mistaken for an alien. Being that some local ufologists claim the Varginha Case is the best UFO evidence ever, the idea that it could be explained so simply is bound to be met with derision.

The bombshell brings to mind the official explanations for the Roswell case, including the claim that it was a Case Closed. It must be taken with a grain of salt. Here’s to our ordinary look at this new development, which from the start, is not actually new.

An Old Story

The “Varginha Incident” happened on January 20, 1996, when a “creature” was sighted by three girls ranging from 14 to 21 years old: sisters Liliane and Valquíria Silva, and their friend Kátia Xavier. According to their emotional description, it was a biped about 5 ft high, with a large head with three horns and very thin body, with V-shaped feet, brown skin, and large red eyes. It seemed to be wobbly or unsteady, and the girls assumed it was injured or sick. The creature was said to have a strong, unpleasant odor.

Soon the story spread through the town, and the next day it reached researcher Ubirajara Rodrigues, local lawyer and professor who is also a well-known ufologist. From there to the local and then to the national news, it was a matter of days.

The stories multiplied as the case was heavily promoted by the media, and in the end the “Varginha Incident” developed a full “chronology” that went from the detection by the NORAD (!) of a giant UFO which crashed in Brazil, to the capture of not one but several aliens which were then autopsied and finally sent to the US, as Brazil traded them for some unspecified favor from the Americans.

One of the first hypothesis Rodrigues investigated was that the girls could have mistaken Little Luis with an alien. In “O Caso Varginha” (2001), his 370-page work on the case, he tells how:

“At the site of their encounter with the unusual being, lives a man named Luiz, with serious mental problems. Little Luis walks around the block and is sit squatted. He doesn’t speak. On the first visit of the girls to the site, after the sighting, Little Luis approached and crouched, as he always does. Kátia took the opportunity to laugh, thinking it really funny the idea that they would have seen that young man and mistaken him by the creature they described. ‘Oh, I have even given him a cigarette, who doesn’t knows Little Luis? There’s no way we would mistake him for that’.”

So, the girls almost immediately and plausibly denied the official explanation. Which, by the way, is also old: the Army investigations were conducted in a few days in May 1996, and then in a more lengthy inquest which ended in July 1997. This is nothing new, and in fact, Rodrigues already knew their contents, as he was one of the witnesses questioned.

In 1999, Vitorio Pacaccini, who investigated the case at the time along with Rodrigues, also published an article refuting this the official explanation. In “Varginha UFO Crash – Brazilian Army Claims 3 Girls Saw ‘Deformed Human’”, Pacaccini even offers us what probably shouldn’t be very necessary: a comparison showing that Little Luis does not actually look like an horrific alien.

“If Luis was the one out there, crunched in that place where the 3 girls sighted that hideous creature, certainly the 3 girls would have recognized him and had not left the place running scared and terrified. They already knew him”, Pacaccini argued. Very well.

An Overlooked Story

Even this author had already heard about the idea, which Rodrigues discussed in private conversations several years ago. I didn’t give it much relevance. Fact is, I had never seen a photo of Little Luis squatting.

He’s almost always sitting that way. And he does live almost in front of the site where the girls met the “hideous creature”. And it did rain heavily that day.

Let’s assume it was not Little Luis whom the girls saw. Sure, it couldn’t be, they already knew him, they saw him again shortly after the event and even laughed about it. Very well.

But if you take that assumption, or even conclusion, you must automatically accept that an unknown creature, perhaps from outer space, appeared of all places in the small town of Varginha, Brazil, in front of Little Luis’ house.

Just to squat exactly as Little Luis does to this day. An alien would travel the galaxies to squat like Little Luis. This would be one squat of a coincidence.

Coincidences do happen, in fact. The USAF report which claims the Roswell aliens were dummies from Project Excelsior tries hard to show how the dummies may have looked like aliens. They do look strange, but the report miss the broader point that people do not need to see strange dummies to come up with stories of aliens, especially if said stories only come up decades after the events.

So, is the Varginha Case closed? Certainly not, as the stories grew much bigger than the initial sighting by the girls. Which we can’t, and probably won’t ever know for sure if it did involve Little Luis, or if it was simply an amazing coincidence involving some actual unknown creature.

But no one should ignore the possibility that one of the most famous Brazilian UFO cases may have started with a simple confusion with a local man, perhaps all muddied up. It’s a plausible explanation, just as one can also plausibly refute it by trusting the girls prompt refusal of said possibility.

Fact is, as Kevin Randle had already noticed, “we have been unable to verify much of anything”. We can’t even claim this was a UFO case, since there is no physical evidence at all, be that of an alien creature, or even of any UFO.

Ubirajara Rodrigues ends his book on the case by courageously admitting that “we cannot reach any conclusion [in this case], as we have never been able to reach one in any UFO case. Not even that it involved an UFO.” It takes seriousness and courage to plainly state you don’t have answers when you don’t. A lot of people would much prefer to have any kind of answers, even if they are pure fantasy.

We still can’t reach any conclusion, but now we have some very thought provoking images.

Ok, ok, Kentaro…you might have a good point here.
But there is something missing in your case: how did the red glowing eyes ended up in the description of the creature? One can look at Little Luis in every position imagined by the authors of kama sutra and, still, no red glowing eyes!

PurrlGurrl November 9th, 2010
3:24 am

Of course, there will always be the question of whether the three young girls were really telling the truth or just playing a practical joke on the grown ups that has became inflated beyond all reasonable expectations.

Kat S November 9th, 2010
11:39 am

Personally, I never believed the girl’s story. It seemed to me to be something made up, perhaps to explain coming home late, or some other infraction of parental rules. But, I am willing to give them some lee way and suppose that they might have seen this unfortunate young man and not recognized him due to the darkness or weather and are/were afraid to admit thier mistake after so much hoopla.

Linda Walker November 9th, 2010
12:17 pm

Its interesting that this man has a mental illness. Is it possible that he has had many visitations since birth and would not be unusual to see alien near his home.
Other possibility is that he himself shape shifts.

[…] Forgetomorie observes: In short, as can be seen in the comparison above, part of the military inquest, Little Luis was allegedly mistaken for an alien. Being that some local ufologists claim the Varginha Case is the best UFO evidence ever, the idea that it could be explained so simply is bound to be met with derision.” […]

lol November 9th, 2010
3:40 pm

I was able to find about 2,000 references to this incident, but not a single objective source for any of the statements made on this case. These references cross-link between themselves, using each other as “sources”. They prop up the ever-expanding story by claiming that all true sources of information were covered up by “the government.” It is a perfect tautology: “The lack of proof for the conspiracy proves the depth of the conspiracy.”

In fairness, I do not speak or read Portuguese, the language of origin for several hundred of the links. Another few hundred were in Spanish, which I read poorly. Someone fluent in one or both of these languages might be able to find a link to a news story or objective source that was lacking from every English page.

Also, I haven’t found any big difference between the common brazilian version and this one. In fact, it looks like a merely translated page instead of a new article

Reminder Joe November 17th, 2011
3:08 am

Red glowing eyes, people. Red glowing eyes the size of two oranges and three protuding horns on the top of the creature’s head. Also, veins all over its body.

Keep that in mind.

p.s.: btw, Tyrone’s comment over there is quite the KKK-funding/redneck explanation to everything. I don’t think we need that pint of racism ’round here. The moderators should delete that crap. I’ve heard racism is a crime in Brazil…